Shifting Sands
by Bad Faery
Summary: Belle is content with her life, her husband, and her newborn son until one day an odd-looking stranger ruins everything.


It was generally agreed that Belle was the most beautiful girl in the village. She had a long line of suitors willing to undertake any herculean task just for the pleasure of stroking her chestnut curls. Therefore, it seemed strange to everyone that Belle spent most of her time in Rumpelstiltskin's hovel, sitting at his feet and watching the middle-aged man spin.

The villagers pulled her aside for friendly chats where they pointed out his age, his poverty, his extreme shyness and reticence. No one seemed to understand that Belle liked him _because_ he was shy. She liked that she was the only one who got to see his true smiles and that he _thought_ about his words before blurting them out like so many of the villagers would benefit from doing. He was only poor because he lacked the nerve to charge appropriately for his wares, the market not being a place he was comfortable. A bold, quick-witted wife would solve that problem easily. And if he was older than her, that just meant he knew more stories.

Any other man would have asked for her hand after the first month, but she'd been sitting and watching him spin for half a year, and he still hadn't so much as touched her arm. Rumpelstiltskin was sweet and kind and dear but he was not brave. Fortunately, Belle had courage enough for both of them, and so one day when she joined him at his wheel, she leaned over his shoulder to ask a question, waited until he turned to answer her, and captured his mouth with her own.

They were hand-fasted a week later.

* * *

Her husband was gentle, sweetly attentive and looked at her with such wonder that Belle felt like she was doing magic when completing the simplest tasks. She didn't mind taking the lead in the slightest, not when she'd always had very definite ideas about how things ought to be, and Rumpelstiltskin seemed more than pleased to follow, taking her suggestions as commands. Belle tried to use her power over him wisely, and he certainly seemed happier than he'd been at any point before their marriage.

Even in their bed he was content to follow since their first night together when he haltingly confessed his lack of experience in such matters with as much shame as Belle would have felt had she needed to confess she had known a man. For the first time she wondered why it was as appalling for a man to be chaste as it was for a woman not to be. Then she stopped wondering and set to work exploring,

He was too thin, but she'd take care of that quickly enough. His skin was smooth and pebbled with gooseflesh at the slightest touch of her hand. Her lips made him quiver with delight, and anything she did to him, he mimicked on her, letting her see for herself just how good touching between a husband and wife could feel. They were both clumsy and awkward, and he was terrified he was going to hurt her, but as days turned to weeks and then to months, they slowly mastered this new art.

Rumpelstiltskin gained a confidence he'd never had before with the knowledge he could make his wife shiver just with a brush of his lips against her neck. He smiled more frequently, touched her often, and Belle was happier than she'd ever been before.

* * *

News of the Ogre Wars had been coming more frequently and vividly, yet the realization that her husband would be expected to fight still came as a surprise to Belle. While the young men of the village whooped and hollered in delight at the thought of glory to come, Rumpelstiltskin stood on the outskirts, looking ill.

Coming up beside him, Belle slipped her hand into his and squeezed. This was wrong. Her gentle husband had no place on a battlefield. His was not a temperament that could find ease in killing, even in defense. This would hurt him, even if he wasn't injured physically, and Belle wished there was something she could do to spare him.

"I'll protect you," he whispered into her hair that night as they lay together. He'd made love to her with a ferocity that was unusual for him, his touches urgent and demanding as though he feared it would be the last time he put his hands on her. Belle clung and petted him and tried to comfort him while she feared the same thing. This couldn't be how their story ended; they'd been scarcely married a year.

"I won't shame you," he vowed, and she shook her head, cradling his face in her hands so she could look into his eyes.

"Come home to me," she commanded, hoping he would obey her this one last time, "That's all that matters. Come home to me. Come home to _us_."

She pulled back to catch his hand, guiding it to rest on her belly. She'd planned to wait until she was certain, not wanting to dash his hopes if she was wrong, but now was not the time to leave anything unsaid. He had to know how much he had to live for so he knew how important it was to be careful.

Rumpelstiltskin's eyes were wide with shock and for a moment she was nervous until the shock gave way to an overwhelming joy, his eyes filling with tears. "Oh Belle. Oh _Belle_," he murmured, clutching her against him, his hand never straying from her abdomen.

He kissed her as though he'd never let her go, tearing his lips from hers only long enough to vow, "I'll come home to you. Both of you."

* * *

The pregnancy wasn't difficult, but Belle longed more for her husband every day. The memory of the wonder in his eyes as he'd crouched to kiss her stomach before leaving stuck with her, and she wished he could see her body changing as their child grew within her. Would he still find her beautiful like this? She hoped he would.

The birth was arduous, and she found herself screaming for him as her time neared. When it finally ended, she sobbed, wanting him with her to share this moment. Their son was perfect, and his papa should be here to admire him.

The boy was a fine, strong lad with masses of dark hair, and in Belle's humble opinion, he was the most beautiful baby ever to exist. She named him Baelfire for the fire that ended the long winter and brought spring. She prayed that his arrival would signal the end of the long war and bring his father home again.

* * *

A weight dropped onto the bed beside Belle, waking her from sleep. She blinked her eyes open, convinced for a moment that she was dreaming because her husband was sitting beside her.

He'd aged twenty years since she saw him last, his face lined with care, and that convinced her this was real. Sitting up, she flung herself into his arms, sobbing against his shoulder, "You're real. You're safe. You're home at last. Oh, I've missed you so! I love you, Rumpelstiltskin."

He held her tightly, hissing in pain when she wound up in his lap, and Belle pulled back immediately. "You're hurt! What's happened?" She scrambled off the bed to light the lantern, taking in his tattered, filthy clothing. He was holding his leg at an awkward angle, and she dropped to her knees at once, pushing up his trouser leg to see that his knee was discolored and shattered.

"Oh, love," she breathed, pressing a kiss to the misshapen joint. "What happened?"

"It's no matter, dearie," he brushed off her concern to pull her back into his arms. "I came home to you." The words were uncertain, like he wasn't sure she'd be pleased about it.

Tears stung her eyes. "Thank all the gods that you did," she murmured, brushing her lips against his tenderly before she suddenly remembered the baby. In her joy at having her husband back, she'd all but forgotten Bae existed. She pulled herself out of him embrace long enough to retrieve the baby from his cradle, placing the boy in his father's hands. "This is your son. This is Baelfire."

Rumpelstiltskin gazed at the boy in wonder, cradling him in one arm so he could run his fingers over the tiny face. Bae's eyes blinked open and he stirred, but to Belle's relief he didn't cry. That would be a terrible way to greet his father for the first time.

With some effort, she managed to get Rumpelstiltskin completely onto the bed, his ruined leg stretched out before him. Tomorrow she'd take a proper look at it and perhaps consult the hedge-witch about healing. Tonight belonged to their family. She nestled against his side, telling him about Bae's birth and the first four months of his life, trying to share every important moment she'd filed away for just this occasion. Rumpelstiltskin might have been away, but she was determined he would have the memories.

"Belle. Dearie," he said hesitantly once she'd finished her tale. "I have to tell you something."

She put her hand on his thigh and tried to press herself even closer against him. "I'm listening."

"The ogres didn't do this," he nodded at his leg, never taking his eyes off of the baby in his arms, "I... I'm afraid you're married to a coward."

"What do you mean?" she asked softly, not understanding.

"It was awful, Belle," he told her bleakly, and she could feel him trembling, "The battles... We can't win this war. There's too many of them. I saw _so_ many people die, and every time I thought I'd be next."

She'd leave an offering tomorrow in thanks that he'd survived. "Thank the gods that you weren't."

"I counted the days. I thought about you and the baby, about Bae. And after a year... I ran." His last words were barely audible. "I ran away in the middle of the battle, and my entire unit was killed."

She inhaled sharply, cold horror filling her at how close she'd come to losing her husband. "Thank you." It was the only thing she could think to say.

This time he did look at her, "For what?"

"For coming home to us. Thank you." Whatever had told him to run, to get away and save himself, she blessed it. Without it, she would be a widow.

"I'm a coward, dearie," he told her, and she shook her head. Her husband was no coward. He was sensible. "They hobbled me."

"Bastards," she breathed, burying her face against his shoulder as she gave his words back to him, "It's no matter. You're home. You came home. That's all that matters to me."

The three of them huddled together in their bed, Belle wrapped protectively around both of her men. Rumpelstiltskin was alive. Rumpelstiltskin was home. Nothing else mattered.

* * *

Belle woke early the next morning, carefully disengaging from her husband. Even in sleep he looked pained and exhausted, and her heart ached. Herbs grew in the nearby meadow that would ease his pain if they were brewed into a tea, and if she moved quickly, she should be able to make it there and back before either he or Bae woke.

She yanked on her dress, not bothering with her cloak as she grabbed her basket and left their small cottage, intent on accomplishing her goal as quickly as possible. It took less than ten minutes to find what she wanted and fill her basket, and she was just standing back up when hands grabbed her shoulders, a high-pitched voice hissing in her ear, "Now we're going to have a little chat."

There had been no one near her a matter of moments ago, and Belle cried out in shock, twisting in the stranger's grasp. "Let me go!" Trying not to lose the basket, she kicked at the stranger's legs, doing her best to crush toes and injure enough to be released, but it was to no avail; the grip was like iron.

She threw her head back and smashed the back of her head into his nose, surprised that her assailant seemed to be only a little taller than she was. He cursed, arms going around her upper body to subdue her, and Belle added her elbows into the mix, making contact with something that shattered.

Suddenly the floor dropped out of the world and she was plummeting even as she was willing to swear her body didn't move. The stranger released her, and she staggered, her vision swimming sickeningly. When it cleared, she was no longer in the meadow.

Belle looked around in horror, finding herself standing in the middle of a large room decorated with tapestries and mysterious objects proudly displayed on pedestals. The windows were hung with heavy curtains, keeping out most of the light but there was enough to see the massive dining table and fine spinning wheel. It was the handsomest room she'd ever been in, and there was nothing like it anywhere near her home. She'd been abducted by magic.

Rounding on her attacker, she demanded, "Take me back at once!" before her voice faltered as she saw who had her. The man- creature- was covered in scales from what she could see, jagged teeth visible in the dim light. His body was misshapen, although she realized almost at once that it was a trick of his spiky coat that gave that impression. Still, he was very clearly not human. "Who are you? What do you want of me?"

"Cooperation would have been appreciated." He glared at her, lifting his hand to his nose, and Belle hoped she'd been able to do some damage.

"Then grabbing me from behind was foolish," she retorted. "I demand you return me to my home." Rumpelstiltskin would be waking up at any moment, and he'd be in pain. She'd planned to have a cup of the tea waiting for him so she could take a good look at his knee, and Bae would need to be fed. She had responsibilities and this creature was keeping her from them.

"Home?" he trilled, sounding like he was laughing at her, "Funny to hear you call it that, dearie."

The endearment caught her off-guard. How did the creature know what her husband called her? Narrowing her eyes, she stared at him, and he stared back. She'd never seen him before- of that she was certain, no one would forget a face like that- but there was something oddly familiar there. Some trick of his posture, the tilt of his head, all of those she knew.

"Who are you?" she demanded, and the creature fluttered his hands.

"It's of no matter." Something was clawing at the back of Belle's mind. _No matter. Dearie._ She took a few steps forward, noticing the creature backing away.

"Stop that," she ordered, and he halted at once. She closed the distance between them and grabbed him by his lapels so she could stare into his face. The creature stared back, his lips parted slightly, and she saw his throat move as he swallowed hard.

His eyes were red, opaque, completely unfamiliar, but there was something behind them that she knew. "Rumpelstiltskin?" she breathed.

The creature's mouth twisted. "At your service, dearie."

Belle stumbled back as her stomach heaved. This creature- her assailant- was _her husband_. She'd heard all the stories about ogres, but she'd never heard that they could do something like this, and he'd been _fine_ last night. Injured, but certainly nothing like _this_.

"You... you..." she stammered, at a loss for words. Suddenly she remembered their son. If he was here and she was here, who was with the baby? Jerking her head, she searched the room for any sign of Bae's cradle and found nothing. "Where's Bae?"

Rumpelstiltskin jolted at the question like he'd forgotten the boy existed. Belle lunged forward, grabbing his coat again. "_Where's Baelfire_?"

Rough hands covered hers, carefully pulling them away from the coat, and Belle noticed they were as scaled as his face. "He's safe."

Her panic eased slightly, but that wasn't really an answer. Still, her husband was no liar, and she couldn't imagine whatever magic had altered his face could have truly changed him. If Rumpelstiltskin said Bae was safe, he was safe. She'd just insist he take her to him once they settled whatever was happening here.

"Is... is it a curse?" she asked hesitantly. His changed appearance was a shock, but worse was the way he was holding himself so stiffly. She could feel none of the warmth that had drawn her to her husband. Yet, war changed people. "Should I kiss you?"

The forces of magic didn't bother with people like them, but Belle knew the stories. She knew what to do. The scoffing noise he made caught her by surprise. "True Love's Kiss? I hardly think that will work for _us_, dearie."

It would have hurt less if he'd struck her. "You no longer love me?" she whispered. It was the curse talking, it had to be. Surely Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't stop loving her so easily.

He snarled at her question like an animal before hissing, "_You_ left _me_."

This was about her leaving the cottage? Holding up her now mostly-empty basket, Belle explained, "I was gathering herbs for your knee. I thought I'd be back before you woke up." His knee no longer seemed to pain him, so at least the curse was good for something.

"But you weren't, were you?" he taunted.

"Apparently not," she murmured, placing the basket on the long table and taking another look around. Her husband had never been controlling, never demanded to know her whereabouts, and Belle did not care for the change. He was also just back from war, and she had to be gentle with him. Clearly, he was not himself. "I'm sorry, husband. Next time I'll let you know where I'm going."

If anything, her words only seemed to agitate him more. "What care I where you go?" he challenged.

"You seemed to care this morning!" she shot back, coming dangerously close to losing her temper. This was the curse talking, not her husband. She had to remember that. Getting angry would help nothing.

"This morning was a long time ago," he muttered, and Belle wanted to smack him.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to force herself to calm down, changing the subject. "Where are we?"

"The Dark Castle. Like it?" He looked genuinely curious at the question, and the name sounded like something out of a faery story.

"It's beautiful," she said honestly. "How did we get here?"

With a flamboyant wave of his hands, he leered at her, "Magic."

Intrigued, she came closer to him, and he shied back. "You can do magic now?"

"Of course." He seemed affronted she had to ask.

Another thought struck her. Someone had to _live_ in the Dark Castle, and they were intruding. Anyone who could afford to make their home in a place like this would not be impressed with a pair of peasants even if one of them was currently cursed and able to do magic. "Can you take us home?"

He looked down at the floor. "You keep calling it that."

"Rumpelstiltskin, please," she tried again, "Thank you for showing me this place. I'm truly very impressed, but I'd like to go home now."

"You should have thought about that before you _left_!" He walked a few paces away just so he could round on her in his fury.

"I'm _sorry_!" she pleaded, unable to understand what was causing his ill-temper, "I meant to be back before you woke."

"_But you didn't come back_!" he all but roared at her.

For all that his eyes were unfamiliar, Belle could still read the pain in them clearly. "Tell me what's going on." There was something more happening here than she was aware of, and that something more was hurting him badly. "I left you in our bed not an hour ago, and you weren't anything like this. Tell me what happened."

He stared at her warily, then his shoulders slumped, the fight going out of his posture, and he looked more like himself now than he had up until this point. "It wasn't an hour ago."

"All right." She paused, waiting for him to continue, but he didn't. "Why don't you start at the beginning? You left your unit. You were hobbled, and you came home to me. Then what happened?"

He smiled bitterly, "Then my lovely wife decided she did not wish to be married to a coward and ran away before the sun rose, never to return."

"You're not a coward," she denied immediately before the rest of his words registered. "Wait. What do you mean I never returned?"

He threw his hands up at her question, "You left me. You left our _son_. You left me alone with a baby and an empty home and a ruined knee to become a laughingstock, the town coward."

Now that he'd started, he couldn't seem to stop, "Do you have any idea how many times Bae and I almost starved? The least you could have done was take him with you. He would have been better off with you." He cut himself off, wincing.

"But you didn't. You left him with me. You left him to the ogres. They dropped the enlistment age to fourteen, and I would have done _anything_ to save him. I went looking for power, and_ I found it_." His tone was vicious as he hurled the words at her like knives.

Belle dug her nails into her wrist, hoping to wake up, but this didn't appear to be a dream. A nightmare, yes, he was talking about Bae as if he was grown up, but it wasn't a dream, and her husband clearly believed every word he was saying.

"I saved him; I saved _all of them_, and he left me too," he ranted, advancing on her. "He left me, and it's _your_ fault. Not mine! _Yours_. So, my little _wife_, I built myself a spell to come back and find you so you could _tell me why_!"

He had her by the shoulders, shaking her violently before staggering back, his hands over his face. "Why didn't you take him, Belle? He would have been safe with you. No one would have found him."

In that moment, he looked broken, and she wanted nothing more than to hold him, but for the first time she was wary of her husband. She couldn't even let herself think about what he seemed to be implying about Bae. "But I _didn't_ leave you," she tried to tell him, "I would never leave you. Something must have happened. Something-"

She stopped herself, going cold. "You said I left you the morning after you came back from the war?" At his nod, she ground her teeth. "I know exactly what happened."

He gestured for her to continue, and she nearly spat the words at him, "I'm not home with you and Bae, because I'm _here_ with _you_. I was on my way back when you grabbed me and brought me here."

The color drained from his scales, leaving him looking oddly translucent and like he was about to be sick. "Take me home," she demanded, hope flooding her. Whatever had happened to him, whatever had happened to Bae, it had happened because she wasn't there. As long as he took her back, Belle could make sure that it _never_ happened. Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't be cursed; Bae wouldn't be lost, and they could live happily the way they were meant to. "Rumpelstiltskin, take me home now!"

If anything, he grew paler. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't? You brought me here, you can take me back. _Please_ take me back!" She had to stop this. Whatever horrors had come for him in her absence, she would fix them, but he had to take her home.

Reaching down, he fumbled at his belt, holding up what looked like a broken glass vial. "This was the heart of the spell. You broke-" he stopped, clearing his throat, "It broke while we were struggling. That's how you got here."

"So make a new one," she told him, and he shook his head.

"I can't. Well, I could but making this one took over a hundred years. It has to ferment, you see, time travel is... quite difficult. And I can't go someplace I already was. Otherwise I would have gone back for Bae." He looked at her like he was expecting her to hit him.

Belle sat down heavily in the sole chair. "Bae's gone. You're... immortal and cursed, and I'm trapped."

"It's not so bad, dearie," he said quickly, crouching beside her, and in that moment he almost sounded like himself. "Bae's not dead, not gone forever. I have a plan to get him back. We... we could be a family again."

At the moment the only thing Belle wanted was to slap the taste out of his mouth. Funny, she'd never thought her husband was an idiot. Perhaps the curse had affected his brain. Either way, she wasn't inclined to put much stock in his plan considering how the last one had turned out.

Leaning forward, she rested her head on her folded arms. "Tell me everything."

* * *

It was a running joke in Storybrooke that Belle Gold was never on time for anything. Either she arrived hours early or minutes late, but she was never where she was supposed to be at any given time. No one complained. Belle was too sweet to find fault with her time management skills, and even if she wasn't, no one wanted to anger her husband.

Rumpelstiltskin had bought her half a dozen lovely watches, all of which she ignored. "Time is not my friend," she reminded him, putting the watches into her jewelry box for safekeeping and so she didn't have to look at them. He cringed at the words, looking every inch the shy spinner he'd once been.

She'd been pulled loose from time, lost fourteen years with her son, and now she was living the same day over and over for decades. Remembering details like when a meeting began was a waste of effort. The library opened when she got there and closed when she left, and anything else could either happen without her or wait for her. Everything else in her life had happened without her.

"It won't be long now, dearie," her husband promised her on a regular basis, but he'd been making the same promise for so many years that the words had lost all meaning. It wasn't until Emma Swan arrived that Belle finally selected one of the lovely watches and put it on her wrist. Now every minute that passed brought her one minute closer to seeing her son.

* * *

"This is it?" she asked, looking around the clearing that looked like a thousand other clearings they'd passed through on their way to get here, her husband intent on the piece of fabric in his hand, part of one of Bae's shirts. By bringing magic back, they'd no doubt helped Regina, but Belle couldn't bring herself to be sorry. Not when it allowed Rumpelstiltskin to pinpoint exactly where the vortex would dump Bae in- she glanced at her watch- seventy minutes.

She sat cross-legged on the ground to wait while her husband limped in endless circles, checking and double-checking that he was correct. Time had slowed again, but by this point she was used to that.

"He won't know me," she voiced the thought that had been bothering her since the day in the Dark Castle when he'd shared his plan to reunite them with Bae. Although he'd told her everything about Bae's life, nothing made up for the fact that she hadn't been there, and in her heart, part of her still expected him to be the fluffy-haired baby she'd last seen. For his part, Bae thought she'd abandoned him, and he knew his father had. This was unlikely to be a happy reunion.

"No," Rumpelstiltskin agreed, his eyes dark with worry, "But he will."

Wind whipped through the clearing although it didn't touch any of the trees, and her husband helped her to her feet, the pair of them leaning against each other as a green light started to glow in midair. "This is it."

The green light grew and started to swirl, turning into a vortex, and Belle could barely look at it. Her baby had willingly gone into _that_? A moment later she heard a voice screaming, "_PAPA_!"

A small figure fell from the vortex which disappeared immediately, leaving him lying on the forest floor. A boy of fourteen looked up at the pair of them, and Belle gasped, her hands covering her mouth. Even if she hadn't known this was Baelfire, she would have recognized that fluffy head of hair at once. He had his father's eyes and her nose and his own mouth, and while he'd been the most beautiful baby in the world, he was an even handsomer youth.

Bae glanced from her to her husband, looking uncertain. "Papa?"

Rumpelstiltskin nodded, tears streaming down his face, and held out his arms. Bae ran into them at once, "You came with me after all! You came! You gave it up!"

They'd explain eventually, but there would be time for that. Now they had time for everything. Rumpelstiltskin hugged Bae fiercely close before relaxing his hold enough to look him in the face, "Bae, I will _never_ let you go again. Now, I want you to listen to me. I told you your mother was dead, but I was wrong. She didn't die; she didn't leave us; she was stolen, and I found her. I found your mama, Bae."

He turned Bae to look at her, the boy's eyes searching her face as eagerly as she was looking at him. "Oh, Bae, how I've missed you," she managed to choke out through her tears, afraid to extend her arms for a hug that she might not get.

The sturdy body colliding with hers nearly knocked her off her feet, and Belle clung to her son, sobbing in earnest. "Bae. Oh, _Baelfire_!"

His voice was muffled against her breasts, and the sound of it nearly brought her to her knees, "Hello, Mama."


End file.
